Focus on Barack Obama
Where whiteness meets race
The Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere was fired up at its conference in downtown Los Angeles last month. More...
Barack Obama
Barack Obama for president
It is inherent in the American character to aspire to greatness, so it can be disorienting when the nation stumbles or loses confidence in bedrock principles or institutions. That's where the United States is as it prepares to select a new president: We have seen the government take a stake in venerable private financial houses; we have witnessed eight years of executive branch power grabs and erosion of civil liberties; we are still recovering from a murderous attack by terrorists on our own soil and still struggling with how best to prevent a recurrence. More...
Michelle Obama in spotlight's glare
It is one of Barack Obama's most reliable laugh lines. At the close of his stump speech, he often says, "I am reminded by every day of my life -- if not by events, then by my wife -- that I am not a perfect man." More...
Fresh face or old-school player?
He managed to burnish a reformer's reputation while swimming in the muddy waters of special-interest- infested state politics. More...
As a child, Obama crossed a cultural divide in Indonesia
As a boy in Indonesia, Barack Obama crisscrossed the religious divide. At the local primary school, he prayed in thanks to a Catholic saint. In the neighborhood mosque, he bowed to Allah. More...
Obama's peers didn't see his angst
As a second-stringer for the Punahou high school basketball squad, Barack Obama would fire up his teammates with renditions from the R&B group Earth, Wind & Fire. In yearbooks, he signed his name with a flourishing O, for Obama, which he topped with an Afro. In a world of 1970s rock 'n' roll, he was known for a love of jazz. More...
Fellow activists say Obama's memoir has too many I's
The drama began with a tiny ad in a local newspaper -- a notice that asbestos was about to be removed from the management office at Altgeld Gardens, the all-black public housing complex where young Barack Obama worked as a community organizer. More...
Early on, Obama showed talent for bridging divisions
Barack Obama's entry into politics came on a winter morning at the white-columned Harvard Law Review building when, about 2 a.m., a deeply divided editorial staff chose him as the first African American to lead the prestigious publication. More...
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